Let the Robot Drive: The Autonomous Car of the Future Is Here | Wired

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Google isn’t the only company with driverless cars on the road. Indeed, just about every traditional automaker is developing its own self-driving model, peppering Silicon Valley with new R&D labs to work on the challenge. Last year, a BMW drove itself down the Autobahn, from Munich to Ingolstadt (“the home of Audi,” as BMW’s Dirk Rossberg told me at the company’s outpost in Mountain View, California). Audi sent an autonomous vehicle up Pikes Peak, while VW, in conjunction with Stanford, is building a successor to Junior. At the Tokyo Auto Show in November, Toyota unveiled its Prius AVOS (Automatic Vehicle Operation System), which can be summoned remotely. GM’s Alan Taub predicts that self-driving cars will be on the road by the decade’s end. Groups like the Society of Automotive Engineers have formed special committees to draft autonomous-vehicle standards.